Jesus Is an Anarchist

James Redford

12.
Cleansing of the Temple: Righteous Libertarian Vigilantism

The only recorded act
of violence by Jesus was what is now known as "the cleansing of the
temple":

Matthew 21:12,13: Then
Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and
sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and
the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, "It is written,
'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den
of thieves.' " (See also Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45,46; John 2:14-17.)

Now this event is
often misinterpreted as being some sort of revolt by Jesus on the bad
aesthetics of commerce being conducted inside of God's temple, and so is
given as anti-libertarian and free-market commentary. But if that were
really what this episode was about then there would have been no cause for
Jesus to accuse the priests of turning the temple into a "den of thieves."

Jesus was being
literal when he said that. To understand what Jesus was talking about one
has to understand the nature of what was being bought and sold in the
temple as well as the function of the "money changers."

What was being bought
and sold in the temple were animals which were to be sacrificed as a sin
offering, and the function of the money changers was to convert the
Gentile Roman money into the Jewish money which would then be suitable to
present inside the temple for purchase of the sacrificial animals.

The people who bought
these animals did not get to take them home to eat – if they had then
Jesus would have had no good reason to object the commerce being conducted
at the temple, and certainly would have no grounds to accuse the priests
of thievery. Rather, the animals stayed in the temple to be sacrificed by
the Levitical priests, which by so doing would (as it was supposed) atone
for the sins of the purchaser of the sacrificed animal.

So when Jesus accused
the priests who conducted this practice of being thieves what he was
saying was that the people who bought these animals to be sacrificed to
atone for their sins were being ripped-off – i.e., that the animal
sacrifices weren't doing anything for their sins. In other words, the
priests were selling religious snake-oil – misrepresenting their product
as curing something it couldn't cure; hence they were committing fraud
(per libertarian rights theory).

Now realize what is at
stake here: Jesus came to save people's very souls, and here people are
being deceived and defrauded into believing that sacrificing these animals
is setting their souls right with God. As it is written in Hebrews 10:4-7:

For it is not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Therefore, when He
came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for
sin You had no pleasure.

Then I said, 'Behold,
I have come – In the volume of the book it is written of Me – To do Your
will, O God.' " Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt
offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in
them" (which are offered according to the law) [...]

If we assume that
Jesus is God's Messiah then He was in a particularly unique position to
accurately determine whether or not these animal sacrifices were achieving
what was being claimed for them, and having determined that the priests
were defrauding their patrons, He took appropriate libertarian action (per
Rothbardian theory in particular) by using retaliatory force against these
thieves.

It is important to
point out that it is only a true Messiah from God which could have rightly
taken such action, for any normal man would not have possessed the
requisite information in order to make that determination honestly.

Thus, not only was
Jesus's only use of force quite libertarian, but it was also in a
situation which would have been inappropriate for most anyone else.